WEGO officers told department will disband

WESTTOWN — Despite opposition from residents, officials Monday night revealed for the first time that the two charter townships that control the Westtown-East Goshen Regional Police Department intend to disband the department.

Westtown Supervisors’ Chairman Charles Barber read a joint statement on behalf of East Goshen and Westtown declaring that contract negotiations between the townships and the department’s officers have failed and the process for disbandment has begun.

“Because of the inability to reach an agreement with the police union and the subsequent loss of Thornbury as a client, each board must face the reality that the only financial recourse is that the WEGO Regional Police Department will need to disband,” Barber said. “Although the members of the governing boards did not desire this outcome - and make no mistake that numerous opportunities were given to the police union to avoid this result, it is now, regrettably, inevitable.”

According to Westtown-East Goshen Police Association President Anthony Ruggieri, the department’s officers received word this weekend that the department’s police officers must accept a final contract proposal from the townships or face the end of the 31-year-old regional police department. The officers rejected the proposal, Ruggieri said.

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Residents of East Goshen and Westtown are guaranteed police protection from WEGO until the officers’ contract expires at the end of 2013. The townships will likely now begin a search for alternative police options, which could include forming new police departments, contracting with other municipalities, or relying on state police. Westtown’s board passed a motion to form a search committee for a chief of the potential Westtown Police Department at a meeting on Sept. 17.

Ruggieri said the association was then informed that the townships would begin taking steps to dissolve the department, and could expect a formal letter “in the near future.”

Patrick Harvey, an attorney representing the townships during the labor dispute, sent an e-mail to the association’s labor attorney Joseph Chupein at 1:29 p.m. Sunday to announce that the Westtown-East Goshen Police Commission had issued its final offer and negotiations would no longer continue.

“The commission’s (Sept. 28) final offer was final and acceptance of this offer was the only way to guarantee continued operations of WEGO,” Harvey wrote. “The association’s vote rejecting the commission’s final offer ends our discussion of possibly preserving future operations of WEGO.”

“As previously stated both Townships are taking steps to dissolve WEGO,” Harvey wrote. “The association will receive formal written notices regarding the dissolution of the department in the near future.”

Chupein replied to Harvey’s e-mail by reiterating the police association’s position that the townships’ contract proposals have been unacceptable and that the officials are putting public safety at risk by threatening the future of the department.

“The employers’ position is absolute, reckless, irresponsible madness,” Chupein wrote. “I have never witnessed such an absolute abdication of governmental responsibility. These ‘leaders’ are doing great harm to the citizens they are supposed to represent and protect, including my own family.”

Chupein was a longtime resident of Westtown and currently lives in Thornbury, which will likely end its 15-year relationship with the Westtown-East Goshen Regional Police Department at the end of this year.

“Shame on you all who are unwilling to preserve the existing Police Department under the very reasonable term offered by the employees,” Chupein wrote. “It is now clear that your intent all along has been to break the union. So be it. You must accept the offer we made or prepare for extensive, expensive and divisive litigation.”

Chupein has said in earlier comments that the officers have offered serious concessions that would alleviate the townships’ financial concerns that has led to the contract dispute.

Chupein said the officers have offered reductions to medical benefits, pension benefits, service related disability benefits, medical benefits payable to disabled officers, and several other significant concessions, which the Association calculated would save the townships at least $300,000 in the contract’s first year.

Even some township officials have acknowledged that the officers’ offers have been close to what East Goshen and Westtown was looking for. A 13-hour meeting at last Monday’s police commission meeting resulted in what officers and some officials thought was the groundwork for a tentative agreement, but the deal fell through at the last minute and both sides went back to the drawing boards.

At an East Goshen meeting last Tuesday, township Supervisor Carmen Battavio, who also represents the township as chairman of the police commission, said a proposal from the police association could have resulted in serious financial savings. Battavio expressed disappointment that the board was unwilling to show flexibility and accept the concessions offered by the police officers.

“I truly believe that we’ve got real savings in the agreement that we’re close to getting and could have had tonight,” Battavio said last Tuesday. “Real money savings that we had asked for, we asked for 100 percent, we got 92 or 93 percent, and that is not acceptable. I disagree with that rationale and I’ll go on record by stating that. I still hope this works out.”

East Goshen’s board is expected to read the statement at Tuesday night’s public meeting.